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Doris Lessing, author of The Golden Notebook and many other novels and a few non-fiction works, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, died yesterday at the age of 94. As Alexandra Schwarz noted in her wonderful New Yorker blog post ,"On Doris Lessing and Not Saying Thank You", The NYT in its obituary of her sounded "a tone of peevish, gawking reproach. (Much better to read Margaret Atwood’s wonderful tribute in the Guardian.)" It is ever thus with the boldly unconventional female.
 Feminist icon Geraldine Ferraro, pictured in 2007, the first female vice-presidential candidate to run on a major political ticket, died Saturday 26 March from lung cancer.
Michelle Goldberg, author of a recent book on reproductive rights "The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World," has an article in the LA Times that summarises the complex arguments made in her book. Both address the conundrum that the world faces twin crises in its demographic future: soaring birth rates globally, with the great majority being amongst the poorest members of the poorest countries, and plummeting birth rates in several leading developed countries, notably Italy, Japan, Spain and Russia. It may seem crazy to assert at first that both problems are the result of women's lack of reproductive and economic freedom, but the arguments are pretty strong. This book is in my Wish List .
Here's an excerpt from the article:
Some social conservatives are using the threat of rapid First World population decline to argue for restrictions on women's rights. But that gets it precisely backward. In developing countries, lower social status for women is associated with higher fertility, but once societies become highly industrialized and women taste a certain amount of freedom, the reverse is true.
Fertility is reaching dangerously low levels in countries where social attitudes and institutions haven't caught up with women's desire to combine work and family. When faced with men who are unwilling to share domestic burdens, inflexible workplaces and day-care shortages, many women respond by having fewer children or forgoing motherhood altogether.
The only bad thing is I'm not there.
Brits and Europeans are still incredibly caught up in the Obama phenomenon. Co-workers ask me anxiously - might he actually win? Could he possibly lose? Is it all about race? (The answers to these questions are more or less the same - how the heck do I know?)
Up until a week ago, we had a lot to work with. The first black candidate of a major party, a front-runner. The Bill and Hilary show, now with added Chelsea. Republicans trying to woo Democrats and a Democrat wowing Europe before he is officially nominated. An acceptance speech that was watched by more viewers than the Oscars to finish off one convention and then an impending hurricane that almost derailed the other one.
And now we have the glorious soap opera that is Governor Palin. California has the governator. Minnesota used to have Jesse the Brain Ventura. But surely only a state as cussed and weird as Alaska could have this force of nature, shooting (both her gun and her mouth), breast-feeding, beauty-contest winning and marathon running her way through history. I sure as hell would never vote for her, but as long as she doesn't accidentally gain the most powerful job in the world, I love this woman!
And, as a follow-up to the life-imitates art thread (Jimmy Smits in a West Wing role prefiguring Senator Obama) has nobody but me noticed the spooky similarities between Sarah Palin and Bree van de Kamp? Or is a subconscious identification of her with the formidable Desperate Housewife what gave legs to the fake pregnancy rumour in the first place? Desperate Housewife runs for Vice President; you can't make this stuff up. She would probably want to change the title to Virtue President.
 ComputerWorld had a very thought-provoking article a couple of weeks ago: "Why women quit technology careers". Or, if they don't quit, why they find themselves 55 years old, nurse-maiding their own bosses who are 15 years younger, half as intelligent and male, and feel only vaguely discontented about it. Not that I'm at all bitter.
 As my regular readers know, I have got into the habit of posting obituaries for those whom I admire or at least (in a few cases) am interested in. Sydney Pollack was definitely in the admired category. Greatest mensch? I don't know, but up there, for sure.
I came across this gem in my occasional perusal of Wikipedia's site of the day. I love how this highlights radical history, makes links between seemingly disparate movements, and also tells a touching story of courage and principles. Even the "see also" linklist at the end is like a roll call of all that is dear to me.
I had to turn off Nancy Pelosi and her glibly triumphal speech. I'm sorry, I am not a good Democrat, it is true. (I'm not really a Democrat at all; it's just that they're less evil than the other guys.) I mean, first of all, the Dems as a rule are so self-congratulatory it's nauseating. All they did was win one measly midterm, and that barely by a gnat's crotchet, and to listen to them you would think they had stood on an asteroid and hove the straying earth back into orbit. But the really sad thing to me is the utterly fallen state of oratory skills and public demeanor.
This is how I heard the honourable Ms. Pelosi's speech, once I blanked out the content for the above reasons and others: A laboriously, prissily delivered sound bite, then rapturous applause. A brief interval of silence, basking in the glow. A second laboriously, prissily delivered sound bite, more rapturous applause. A third sound bite, slightly more shrill, and the applause, having barely died down, swells again. A moment to all catch our breaths and savour our righteousness. A very laboriously delivered sound bite that thinks it's a rhetorical master-stroke, followed by delirious applause and a group orgasm.
I can remember a time when the whole speech was delivered in its entirety before anyone would consider whether it was good enough to merit a little polite applause or a respectful standing ovation. The sort of newspeak cliche-fests we now have would not have been considered worthy. From what little of the actual words that leaked through into my aggrieved brain, I think the new Majority Leader's text was mainly feminism and its long-overdue rewards. Now if she actually does anything to advance the cause of women in her new position, I may retract my disgust a little, but I am not holding my breath. Because there was also some very realpolitikal waffle about Iraq in there too.
The Guardian has a retrospective article about the Greenham Common Peace Camp. Participants in the demonstrations are asked for their recollections, both the positive and the negative, and it is interesting to see where they are now and how they compare the political feel of the present day to 1981-83. One of the women pictured left is now a Plaid Cymru member of the Welsh Assembly. She feels very betrayed by the Labour party's present support for war in Iraq and the Trident missile. No surprise there. Many women today question the exclusion of men that was a major hallmark of the Greenham Common camp. Could there be a connection, do you think? Who knows how many gentle, thoughtful young men, now more anonymous even than the Greenham heroines, were discouraged forever from political activism, and what if they had come to lead the Labour party, rather than a naked opportunist named Blair and a curiously old-school, paternalistic socialist named Brown, and all their male and female acolytes, none of whom would have been at Greenham Common in the first place? It kind of makes you think.
In Veil Power (The Guardian) Brian Whitaker deconstructs the myths and truths about the place of women in society in Saudi Arabia. Many of the practices that the West assumes are Muslim "law" and oppressive and hateful to women are, in fact, customs backed up by an often tortured interpretation of the Koran and the choice of women more than of men. The underlying assumption in cultures throughout the Middle East is that sex is an overpowering force, that women cannot help but be temptresses, and that men cannot possibly control their lustful natures in a sexually unsegregated society. This not only leads to women having a completely separate existence, but it leads Arab men into serious trouble when they travel or migrate to or work in the West, where there is an assumption that men are responsible for their own behaviour towards women. So, what's in it for the women of regimes like Saudi Arabia where the "Muslim" way of life is so entrenched that it hardly matters that it's not actually enshrined in law. Well, for one thing, they get better parties.
Diablo Cody's all-purpose lapsed-Catholic (but not totally lapsed) confession of faith in City Pages is incredibly moving, despite the clever, hip, former-sex-worker tone. Read every word, there are some real gems of writing there.
The Brain Sex Quiz will tell you how female your brain is. This is related to a series on the Beeb called Secrets of the Sexes. It's better than the usual dumbed-down science fare on TV. At this site you can also read about the accuracy (or not) of intelligence tests, which celebrities have high IQs and the latest thinking on - um - thinking.
I just recently added Creative Loafing (Atlanta) to Deborama's Fund of Knowledge under the Local News Sources category. I was browsing the web trying to find places to shop in Atlanta. That's because I am going there for a week, from April the 9th, primarily to visit my son, Carey. But hey, I may as well shop a bit too.
I recently attended a meetup in Nuneaton of American Ex-pats. I met two, Jay and Carla, and also Jay's English husband. We were all three American women with English husbands and we live within 5 miles of each other. We are trying to grow the network of Midlands Americans.
Deborama's friends, colleagues and family have been plagued by illness and stress lately, so even though I am theoretically fine, with my thin psychic skin, I am feeling the effects. My mother-in-law had a heart attack (she's much better now), my husband is in an emotional trough, the guy next to me at work on the verge of a total emotional meltdown, and a woman I ride to work with on the train most days has a 21 year old grand-daughter who just had her second major brain surgery and has apparently had some brain trauma because she is in a sort of fantasy state and has severe short-term memory loss.
All this is partly why I have not been blogging very much. I am just wiped out when I get home and then the weekends pass in a daze of TV and messed-up sleep patterns. I am off work until next Tuesday so maybe I can get something done, at least my backlog of book reviews. I am thinking of introducing some TV reviews. I am in awe of the wonderful site Television Without Pity, but I would do much more selective, and much shorter, reviews. Feedback?
I am not going to blog about the Chuck and 'Milla Show. Not now, not ever, well, not unless they do something newsworthy. But I can still blog about the things that spring up because of them and their little drama, such as this wonderfully bitchy depiction, by Polly Toynbee, of what monarchy does to a nation, which I have had the misfortune to witness firsthand.
Ludicrous and grotesque for the wretched royal performers and their subjects alike, this is the least dignified of all state institutions. It always was, even in those relatively few reigns when the monarch did behave with due decorum.
The glittering emblem of the sovereign infantilises the nation into an unhealthy fascination with the doings of the royal household, children, servants, foibles and every banal saying and doing. It demeans the idea of citizenship and the meaning of the state. Why should these meaningless people be embedded in our national imagination? . . .
The tyranny of the monarchy is not in its puny temporal power but in its hold over the national imagination. Its spirit permeates politics, poisoning the appetite for reform and imbuing the nation with grandiose fantasies. It imparts an unsubtle taste for the thwack of "strong government" under the firm dictatorship of one party: Her Majesty's government. Proportional representation comes from another part of the brain, less hierarchical, less certain, more consensual - but somehow "not the British way". We have hierarchy hard-wired into us - tyrannical little kings and queens atop every pyramid of management. That last paragraph particular struck a nerve. While all the "royal wedding" fuss was going on, my workplace in Nottingham was actually graced with a visit from a minor royal: Sophie, the Countess of Wessex. To my staunchly republican American gaze, this was an appalling show. First, they closed off to all of us peons the spanking new and happy-shiny atrium of our building, with its vital deli, shop and cafeteria, between 10:30 and 12:15. Then we were informed we were "welcome" (ha!) to stand respectfully around the balconies on the upper two floors and gawk at the lovely Countess and the beribboned mayor and those lucky few who actually got to press the royal(-ish) flesh. (No flash photos please.) Then the intranet the next day was adorned with pictures of the poor old wait staff in their crisp uniforms standing at attention behind the crystal coffee urn, the ultra-serious PR types and management types looking only a touch less ludicrous as they stood at ease in their poshest suits awaiting her arrival, and in some ways the unluckiest of all, the Countess herself, dwarfed by a huge bouquet that she was apparently obliged to carry around with her the entire two hours she took part in the Presenting of the Enormous 7-foot Cheque, the Song-singing of the Local Schoolchildren Who Would Benefit from the Aforesaid Cheque, the Making of the Speech, and the Listening to the Welcomes and Thank Yous of a Grateful Nottingham. Meanwhile back at home (our castle!) DH thinks he (but not I, of course) and other British men and women, ought to have a referendum on the role that poor old Camilla will play in the nation. He just doesn't get it. Referenda are not guaranteed in any government, and certainly not a monarchy. I think he wants to have his cake and eat it too, because he is not in favour of abolition of the anachronistic institutions in Britain, but only of their reform, or to be more precise, picking and choosing the bits he likes. I say "You live in a monarchy, which means you are a 'subject' rather than a 'citizen'. If you're not prepared to change it, just deal with it."
I have a confession to make. I started watching Desperate Housewives at its UK debut, and I am an open and practicing viewer of the show. In short, I am hooked. In Red Sluts, Blue Sluts, The Nation's Richard Goldstein deconstructs the show in an attempt to answer the question of why it appeals equally to bi-coastal gay and metrosexual men, married Christian conservative heartlanders and American feminists from states of every colour. (And, I would add, the Brits who love them.) While the creators of this show understand the golden conservative rule of sinful pleasure--it must beget ruination--on TV this could take many seasons, and meanwhile everyone can focus on the hot means to that hellish end. For different reasons, secular humanists and fundamentalists alike can revel in the foibles of idle, affluent housewives. The right can view the show's sexual politics--women competing for men, men struggling for dominance over their wives--as fidelity to the patriarchal code, while lefties can see the same thing as camp. What's more, a babe is a babe, a hunk is a hunk, and the joys of watching their unseemly meeting cross party lines.
Riverbend has fired up the generator and at the cost of precious fuel sent another despatch from Baghdad:
There are several problems. The first is the fact that, technically, we don't know the candidates. We know the principal heads of the lists but we don't know who exactly will be running. It really is confusing. They aren't making the lists public because they are afraid the candidates will be assassinated. Another problem is the selling of ballots. . . Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled "male". Now, call me insane, but I found this slightly disturbing. Why was that done? Was it some sort of a mistake? Why is the sex on the card anyway? What difference does it make? There are some theories about this. Some are saying that many of the more religiously inclined families won't want their womenfolk voting so it might be permissible for the head of the family to take the women's ID and her ballot and do the voting for her. Another theory is that this 'mistake' will make things easier for people making fake IDs to vote in place of females.
All of this has given the coming elections a sort of sinister cloak. There is too much mystery involved and too little transparency. It is more than a little bit worrisome.
American politicians seem to be very confident that Iraq is going to come out of these elections with a secular government. How is that going to happen when many Shia Iraqis are being driven to vote with various fatwas from Sistani and gang? Sistani and some others of Iranian inclination came out with fatwas claiming that non-voters will burn in the hottest fires of the underworld for an eternity if they don't vote (I'm wondering- was this a fatwa borrowed from right-wing Bushies during the American elections?). So someone fuelled with a scorching fatwa like that one- how will they vote? Secular? Yeah, right.
Guess who said this:
Homosexuality is the mark of Cain, of a godless and soulless culture which is sick to the core. The teaching of the youth to appreciate the value of the community, derives its strongest inner power from the truths of Christianity. For this reason, it will always be my special duty to safeguard the right and free development of the Christian school and the Christian fundamentals of all education. Answers in the comments or via e-mail (there's a button). [Much later addendum. No one tried to answer. The answer is of course Adolf Hitler.]
This website was included in an official Oregon pamphlet to help voters consider the issues on the ballot. It is unclear whether election officials knew that it was satire.
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